Dozing blades are used in tractor implement systems in many different applications. The capability of pushing loose material about a worksite in construction, waste handling, and all manner of natural resource and mining applications is indispensable. Tractors equipped with dozing blades are also used to dig material from a substrate. In many instances, small- to medium-size tractors are used more for moving loose material, while larger and more powerful machines may be used for digging material from a substrate, also known as “production dozing.” The basic structure of a dozing blade includes a frame structured for mounting to actuators and supports in the tractor's implement system, a moldboard supported by the frame that interacts with loose material that may be cut or scraped from an underlying substrate by way of a replaceable cutting edge or cutter. Dozing blades and their components are typically configured at least in part on the basis of the anticipated application. Such purpose-building has led to numerous different commercially available dozing blade and cutting edge geometries.
Engineers are continually seeking ways to expand the capabilities of tractors of all sizes, and for this and other reasons there continues to be significant research and development in relation to the design of dozing blades, the control of dozing blades and the related implement system, as well as materials and construction of the replaceable cutting edges or cutters commonly mounted upon a lower edge of a dozing blade. Those skilled in the art will be familiar with the variety of designs for dozing blades themselves, as well as the cutting edges mounted on dozing blades that actually cut, fracture, and/or dig the substrate material. Commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 8,602,122 to Congdon et al. is directed to a track-type tractor, dozing blade assembly, and dozing blade with a steep center segment. In Congdon et al., a cutter for a dozing blade has a compound digging face with a steeply oriented center segment, and shallowly oriented outer segments, for optimizing the manner in which the dozing blade assembly moves through a material of a substrate.